If You Ask Me/By Martha Knight

It’s good to see the people’s business being handled in an orderly way, isn’t it?

It’s good for our public servants to conduct business that way; and it’s good that we can SEE them doing it.

We can see official stuff being done when it is done at public meetings, as the law says it must be.

When a quorum of the official body (five school board members, four borough council members, two county commissioners, two township supervisors) is/are together somewhere, not in a regularly scheduled or advertised meeting, there is a chance they could be in violation of the Open Government or Sunshine or Right to Know laws. Or perhaps I should say there’s a chance they are not violating our rights, but a greater chance that they are.

It all depends. With regard to county commissioners and township supervisors, those worthies have certain executive duties in addition to the decision-making or legislative ones. But school board and borough council members don’t.

Even so, they can cross the line very, very easily. Perhaps commissioners or supervisors encountered one another by accident. They are on friendly terms (at least, some are, and the hope is that they will always be civil toward one another, even congenial, even if they aren’t best buds.) They might discuss safe topics, which, an adage tells us, would not include religion or politics.

They might discuss some other government, not the one they were elected to conduct. So far, so good. They might work within the bounds of something that has already been decided, such as scheduling work that is within the budget and has a high priority and was approved previously, in public. Well and good.

Or one might suggest that they start their own fire department, and it might as well have an ambulance service. This suggestion could be ever so informal and casual. One of them has been thinking about this, and it crosses his mind, and he mentions it to the other one because they are together for some legitimate reason or other.

The other official finds this an interesting idea. They chat about it a little more, and see eye to eye. It is at least a meeting of the minds, if not a Vulcan mind-meld.

This might occur in the township barn, in a truck, at a club, on the street, in a store, on the golf links, after church, anywhere. Likely there is no intention to violate the law, or to be sneaky. It’s what Rotarians might do concerning Rotary matters.

But it isn’t how township are supposed to handle business. Based on their discussion, they might b ring up the matter at a regular or a special public meeting, but it is a done deal before the meeting, and the meeting is a formality, not when the actual decision was reached. They may vote formally to do what they had already decided privately, and that formal vote may occur in public, but that doesn’t “cure” the problem.

Similar out-of-public, seemingly natural and casual, discussions of public business take place among city and borough council members.

We, the people, the public, are supposed to be able to see the deliberative process, in which ideas or proposals are first brought up, and see how those ideas are developed, and how consensus is reached. What arguments are raised? How are plans refined? What reasoning is applied? What information is brought to bear?

Not only are we supposed to be able to see this deliberative process as it goes on, maybe in one meeting, maybe in a planning operation that goes on over a period of weeks, months or even years—we are supposed to be given an opportunity to ask questions or to give our opinions. Once that quorum of two, or of four or of five, have committed themselves privately, it is unlikely they will change their minds. But they are not supposed to commit themselves before there have been deliberations—in public.

Whenever we see what appear to be complex, or involved, or possibly momentous decisions made quickly and easily in a public meeting, this is a sign it has been discussed behind the scenes. 

Consensus has been reached, out of view. Not all the facts have been presented in public, but presumably are known to the deciders—just not shared with us.

The matter is there, on the agenda, in all its simplicity (no more than can be fit into a motion). Or perhaps there is more to it than could be expressed in a motion; and perhaps there is a detailed resolution or a binding agreement attached. But often no time is spent discussing the ins and outs of the decision before the vote.

I think that falls short of open government. What do you think? “We elected them and now they can go ahead and handle the government” is not the totality of what representative democracy is about. 

There is more. We are entitled to watch them handling government. There is supposed to be transparency (an ideal much lauded by candidates, it seems). And we are supposed to have an opportunity for input.

In the past couple of months I have heard two examples of another of my pet peeves, that of government meetings playing fast and loose with accepted or correct and lawful procedure, through apparent confusion as to what the procedure is.

I refer to confusion about some basic form of “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

I hear a presider or other official say, in response to some member of the body making a suggestion or wanting clarification about the matter that will be voted on in a moment: “There is a motion on the floor.”

There being a motion on the floor (that is, made and seconded) and it being discussed or debated does not preclude it being changed before it is adopted or voted down!

A motion can be amended, if the body in question so wills. An amendment can be offered, and maybe accepted by the mover and seconder of the original motion, or the amendment can be made to the original motion, by majority vote. And then the motion, as amended, is before the body and can be approved, or not.

Some presiders seem to think a motion must be disposed of as originally moved. Not true. 

Amendments usually are in order. If the un-amended motion is adopted first, how could there be any amendments?

Peace.

 
Drymar@gmail.com. 596-7546